Development of a Mobile Application for Detection of Adolescent Mental Health Problems and Feasibility Assessment with Primary Health Care Workers

Abstract

Introduction: There has been a sharp increase in the use of digital health interventions in global health, particularly mobile health applications, in recent years. The extreme shortage of health care providers trained in mental health screening and intervention in low-and middle-income countries raises questions about the applicability of mobile applications to deliver these services due to their accessibility and availability. This exploratory paper describes the development and feasibility assessment of a mobile screening application for the detection of mental disorders among adolescents in Zambia and South Africa. Methods: Eighty-two health care workers (HCW) working in primary care evaluated the acceptability and practicality of the mobile screening application after receiving brief training. The evaluation included questions from the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS) as well as open-ended questions. Results: The acceptability of the screening app was high and study participants were positive about using the app in routine care. Problems with internet connectivity, and time and staff constraints were perceived as the main barriers to regular use. Conclusion: HCW in primary care were able and willing to use a mobile screening app for the detection of mental health problems among treatment-seeking adolescents. Implementation in clinical practice needs to be further evaluated.

Developing a Comprehensive List of Criteria to Evaluate the Characteristics and Quality of eHealth Smartphone Apps: Systematic Review

“…However, to improve understanding or align with known formulations, they suggested revisions to the wording of 12 criteria [28]. On the basis of the research team's recommendations (Multimedia Appendix 6 [25,[45][46][47][76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85]), 11 new criteria were added (Multimedia Appendix 7 [28]). These additions were mainly to the ethical, legal, and social aspects section.…”

“…Although 23 of the existing tools were explicitly intended for HCPs [14,43,46,47,[76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86][93][94][95][96][97][98][99][100], none of these were complete; rather, they were too focused on specific conditions, or their theoretical justifications or development processes were not described. Such omissions make it difficult for HCPs in clinical practice to comprehensively but feasibly describe and evaluate eHealth apps in a standardized way to guide the recommendation of relevant, reliable, and high-quality apps to their patients [11,13,14].…”

Mandatory after-school use of step tracker apps improves physical activity, body composition and fitness of adolescents

“…Among the new technologies most widely used in this population, mobile phones stand out as being commonly associated with mental disorders and sedentary behavior in adolescents (Fanchang et al, 2021 ; Xiang et al, 2021 ), as well as poorer peer relationships and academic performance (Legkauskas & Steponavičiūtė-Kupčinskė, 2021 ). However, mobile phones also offers a multitude of possibilities for the establishment of healthy lifestyle habits, among which mobile applications stand out (Groen et al, 2022 ; Kracht et al, 2021 ). In recent years, numerous health-related applications have been developed related to physical activity (Mokmin & Jamiat, 2021 ), highlighting those that push the users to try to increase the number of steps or daily distance covered (Schoeppe et al, 2017 ), being valid and acceptable tools to measure physical activity (Parmenter et al, 2022 ).…”